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Phone company hang-ups
Today I received my monthly Verizon phone bill. New charges came to $43.09, which even more frugal readers will admit is a modest total. I would agree, except for one small problem: I have not had a working phone line since I vacated my rodent-infested Kips Bay studio for my current East Village pad on August 12th.
For those of you lucky enough to live beyond its considerable sphere of influence, Verizon is the telecommunications conglomorate formed by the recent merger of the inept GTE with the inefficient Bell Atlantic. Its name is derived from veris zona, which is Latin for "no dial tone."
Although it violates LARGER EGO's editorial policy to use profanity, I find it impossible to write a column about Verizon without using the word pigfuckers. There is no other word that so aptly describes the company, from vice chairman and president Lawrence T. Babbio Jr. to the four idiots they sent to my house to do a routine installation (more on that later). Let me explain:
On August 6, exactly six days prior to my move, Verizon workers represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the Communications Workers of America -- the pigfuckers who install new phone lines and such -- went on strike. The union had not come to terms with Management -- the pigfuckers who call the shots -- on a new contract. The union pigfuckers demanded more money, less mandatory overtime, and assurances that their jobs would not be relocated to regions where labor is cheaper. This last item, reportedly, was a major stumbling block.
Just how the Management pigfuckers planned to hire union pigfuckers in South Dakota to install new phone lines in Manhattan was not revealed.
Far from generating sympathy in me, the strike and its aftermath engendered a loathing for all things Verizon. My hatred of the company now extends to its rotund spokesman, James Earl Jones. Jones has always had meretricious tendencies -- witness his list of credits on the IMDB if you don't believe me -- but these days he might as well patrol the corner of 14th and Tenth in a miniskirt and spiked heels. Is there anything this guy wouldn't do? I would rather hear him say, "Have you or someone you love been injured in an automobile accident?" than, "This is a Verizon payphone." How appropriate that the voice of this Evil Empire is also the voice of Darth Vader.
But I digress.
After 18 days of picketing and posturing, the pigfuckers agreed on a new contract and resumed the brand of service the public has come to expect from GTE and Bell Atlantic. (Insert joke here). My calling card was activated. My voice mail began to receive incoming calls. But the phone line remained dead. Which made me miss several important calls, as I was unable to access my voice mail messages until I set up my voice mail. Which I could only do from the phone line associated with that voice mail. Which, as stated previously, was dead.
On four different occasions pigfuckers visited my apartment, tool belts at the ready. And on four different occasions pigfuckers failed to coax the phone line to life, despite assurances to the contrary.
Clearly Management was right in succumbing to the demands of these highly trained professionals, a quartet of whom could not figure out how to flip a switch. How many Verizon technicians, I wonder, would it take to screw in a light bulb?
When my girlfriend's phone inexplicably rang on September 2 -- the sound was akin to angels singing, I tell you -- I decided to forgo further engagement with the pigfuckers and share her line.
This has not stopped the pigfuckers from billing me promptly each month. The accounts receiveables department, evidently, was not affected by the work stoppage.
It is with some amusement that I scour the bill. Included in the new charges are $6.11 for the privilege of dial tone, $5.19 for Call Waiting (or Call-us Interrupt-us, as my friend Rich calls it), and $2.20 worth of local calls.
I understand them billing me for Call Waiting, as I am still waiting to receive calls. But how, I wonder, could I possibly have placed ten local calls on a phone line with no dial tone, as it claims on the invoice?
I am tempted to call the pigfuckers to find out. But it's not worth the aggrevation. Verizon has wasted enough of my time. Now I'm going to inconvenience them.
After all, what can the pigfuckers do if I don't pay? Have some collection agency call me? They will get the same message my friends have been getting for months: "I'm sorry; that mailbox is full."
Perhaps they will be forced to cut my phone line. Given the competance the pigfuckers have demonstrated to date, they will probably turn it on by mistake.
It's enough to make you nostalgic for Bell Atlantic.
By Greg Olear
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